Wolves hope to extend winning streak

Wolves play at home at The Rink on Friday

The West Michigan Wolves Junior A hockey team will try to extend its winning streak to four games on Friday night when the squads hosts the Toledo Cherokee at 7 p.m. at The Rink in downtown Battle Creek.

It’s the opener of a home-and-home weekend series, as West Michigan travels to Toledo for a 7 p.m. rematch Saturday.

The Wolves, who were idle last weekend, last played Sept. 20-21 when they pulled off a home sweep of the Peoria Mustangs, 6-5 in a shootout and 3-2.

Since that time, head coach/general manager Marc Fakler said his North American 3 Hockey League club has been working hard at practice — and he added that the time off has allowed some of his players who were banged up a bit to heal some injuries.

“The break gave us a chance to refresh ourselves a bit, to re-group and re-focus and work on what we need to get better at,” Fakler said. “The guys put a lot into that first month of the season ... and now that they’ve had a little time off, they’re ready to go back at it again.”

The Wolves are currently 3-2-0 for six points, good for third place in the NA3HL’s Central Division. The Cherokee are 5-2-1 for 11 points and in first place in the East Division.

The two teams met in a preseason exhibition game on Aug. 30 at Toledo, when the Wolves posted a come-from-behind 4-3 victory.

“A lot has changed for both teams since then, though,” Fakler said. “They’ve improved a lot, we’ve inproved a lot ... it will be a challenge for us to get points out of the games this weekend. But we’re up to that challenge.”

Fakler said the Wolves have made one recent roster addition, adding forward Tait Aptakin (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.), who most recently played for the Lansing Capitals U18 team. Aptakin is a former Capitals teammate of current West Michigan Wolves Sean Smalley (East Lansing) and Kyle Keeder (Jackson).

The Wolves’ leading scorer heading into the weekend is forward and alternate captain Michael Tratar (Madison Heights), who has four goals and four assists for eight points in five games played.